"Squeeze" based Debian Edu version released

Francesca Ciceri <madamezou <at> debian.org>
2012-03-11 16:49:01 GMT

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The Debian Project http://www.debian.org/
First "Squeeze" based Debian Edu version released press <at> debian.org
March 11th, 2012 http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311
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March 11th, 2012
The Debian Edu Team is pleased to announce the release of Debian Edu
"Squeeze" 6.0.4+r0! Debian Edu (aka "Skolelinux") is a Debian Pure
Blend specifically targeted at schools and educational institutions,
and provides a completely configured school network environment out of
the box. It covers PXE installation, PXE booting for diskless machines,
and setup for a school server, for stationary workstations, and for
workstations that can be taken away from the school network. Several
educational applications like Celestia, Dr. Geo, GCompris, GeoGebra,
Kalzium, KGeography and Solfege are included in the default desktop
setup.
Besides including everything provided by the fourth update of Debian
"Squeeze" (6.0.4), this new release of Debian Edu introduces some
interesting improvements, including: replacement of LWAT with GOsa² as
the LDAP administration interface; updated artwork and new Debian Edu /
Skolelinux logo; a new LXDE desktop option, in addition to KDE
(default) and GNOME (LXDE and GNOME are available only with the CD
installation method); faster LTSP client boot; improved handing of
removable media on thin clients; a new roaming workstation profile for
laptops; full Samba NT4 domain support for Windows XP/Vista/7; etc.
The Debian Edu Team has also worked intensively on the documentation,
improving and extending the manual which is now fully translated to
German, French and Italian, while partial translations exist for
Danish, Norwegian Bokmål and Spanish. The installation process has
also been improved, integrating the new version of debian-installer,
allowing copying of ISO images to USB sticks and changing partitioning
for Standalone installs to have a separate /home and no /usr.
When asked about the [1] advantages of Skolelinux/Debian Edu, Nigel Barker
replied: "For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the
workstation, or the LTSP. It's all of them, and it's all configured
ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is
designed to be set up and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who
doesn't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian
school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with Japan."
1: http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html
For those who want to give Debian Edu "Squeeze" a try, [2] complete
download and installation instructions are available, including
detailed instructions in the [3] "Getting Started" chapter of the manual
explaining the first steps, such as setting up a network or adding
users.
2: http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/en/debian-edu-squeeze-manual.html#Installation
3: http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/en/debian-edu-squeeze-manual.html#GettingStarted
Those who are already using rc1-3 can upgrade to this version by using
for example "apt-get upgrade" - users upgrading from beta3 must make
sure they keep the existing gosa.conf file when dpkg asks how to handle
the changed file during upgrade.
The sha1sums of the released ISO images:
f4184237f0eb2a509c6729b3f8039b71f5f4394a debian-edu-6.0.4+edu+r0-CD.iso
64681588fffa7a20f5d9e67c726f010580e35b9f debian-edu-6.0.4+edu+r0-DVD.iso
087d0c69da17b4a98a2966ff752fcfea8e30ec23 debian-edu-6.0.4+edu+r0-source-DVD.iso
Would you like to give your school's computer a longer life? Are you
tired of sneaker administration, running from computer to computer
reinstalling the operating system? Would you like to administrate all
the computers in your school using only a couple of hours every week?
Check out Debian Edu Squeeze!
Skolelinux is used by at least two hundred schools all over the world,
mostly in Germany (in 2009 the region of Rhineland-Palatinate decided
to use it in all its schools) and Norway.
About Debian Edu
----------------
The [4] Skolelinux project was founded in Norway in 2001 with the aim of
creating a GNU/Linux distribution for schools and other educational
institutions. After merging with the French Debian Edu project in 2003,
Skolelinux became a [5] Debian Pure Blend. Today the system is in use in
several countries around the world, with most installations in Norway,
Spain, Germany and France.
4: http://www.skolelinux.org/
5: http://wiki.debian.org/DebianPureBlends
About Debian
------------
The Debian Project was founded in 1993 by Ian Murdock to be a truly
free community project. Since then the project has grown to be one of
the largest and most influential open source projects. Thousands of
volunteers from all over the world work together to create and maintain
Debian software. Available in 70 languages, and supporting a huge range
of computer types, Debian calls itself the "universal operating system".
Contact Information
-------------------
For further information, please visit the Debian web pages at
http://www.debian.org/ or send mail to <press <at> debian.org>.